


spell it out for me

by TheBrokaryotes



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt, Gen, Homesick Lance (Voltron), Hurt, Hurt Lance (Voltron), Panic Attacks, RIP, keith tries but lance has The Anxiety, theres no comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-03
Updated: 2017-05-03
Packaged: 2018-10-27 04:16:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10801503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBrokaryotes/pseuds/TheBrokaryotes
Summary: Sometimes words don’t flow. They backlog and they stop up and they get caught in your throat where they choke you out, drag you down to the bottom of a void of emotions and drown you. They wind around you like a vice and strangle the meaning out of your thoughts until you’re reduced to a puddle of miscommunication and ache, empty ache, for someone to just understand.





	spell it out for me

**Author's Note:**

> yeah this just hurt for fuckin real i cant remember what my original idea was but anyway here's lance hyperventilating while having a fuckin panic attack :')

_L-A-N-C-E._

Words were always something Lance needed to rely on, and not having them anymore was jarring. Not being able to look someone in the eye and make a coherent thought was terrifying, paralyzing. He _had_ to explain himself, and his language failed him. It was enough to send him into a tailspin.

 _Just let it out,_ Keith had told him, rubbing his back as he convulsed, palms pressed heavily into his eyes. Keith may not be good at nonverbals, but he knew what a panic attack looked like, and he knew what it felt like for the words to disappear. He’d been the bearer of more than one mind-numbing anxiety attack in his lifetime, felt his brain scatter to the wind as it eviscerated itself from the inside out, taking his coherency and his common sense right along with it.

Lance heaved dryly again, not for need to vomit or remove a single thing from his insides, but just to feel the pain of being real. Of being grounded and alive. In this state, his mind could trick him into thinking that he was dying, his life was ending, there was no turning back. When he choked on his tears and swallowed his sobs, they slid hard down his throat and burned up his stomach, the hurt that grabbed at his abdomen an indication that he was going to be fine. He wouldn’t die from this.

_L-A-N-C-E._

That, of course, didn’t stop it. The silent cries continued, muscles tense and trembling, hands quivering as they wiped redness over his cheeks, across his nose, skin glistening with tears, mouth twisted down in anguish.

 _Just let it out_ was so much harder in practice, because Lance wasn’t altogether certain what it was he was trying to rid himself of. Was it fear? Nerves? His lungs? The inky black pit inside of his chest chasmed deeply until it threatened to pull his whole body in on itself. He clutches desperately at his shirt and held his fists there firmly, as if it would stop the sensation that crawled along his skin from extending further.

Keith’s fingers burned between his shoulder blades, and Lance hated that he wanted them gone. Their absence would be his demise, he knew, but right now they felt like molten rock, dripping over his back and cascading hotly down his spine. His muscles seized at their contact, his touches blooming with electric pain.

 _Let go,_ he heard himself say. Keith’s response was in the confused twitch of his hand, not fully pulling back, still hovering just over his shirt fabric. Lance didn’t need to look at his face to know the confused expression he undoubtedly donned. He sputtered out a single syllable, a personal pronoun. I—

_Let go!_

The contact was gone. Keith’s heated warmth and burning comfort was gone. Lance spiraled further, going silent for a moment as the bottom fell out of his mind and his psyche sank deeper into its own dark recesses.

_L-A-N-C-E._

_I don’t need you,_ came a gravelly growl from somewhere within Lance’s chest cavity. It was not his own. _I can take care of myself. Just go away._

Keith’s hurt was palpable through the tense air. Dim blue light that glowed on the fringe of his skin reflected off his eyes enough to outline the confused frown that pulled on his face, the irritated, concerned furrow of his brow. When Lance took a look at him, his own eyes hot with tears and primal fear, he could feel it in the atmosphere—the exact moment Keith's heart snapped in two. 

_I-I’m sorry._ Keith's words float through the air like the noncorporeal whisper of a phantom. _I didn’t mean to make it worse._

 _I don’t care,_ Lance spits, yet again, not of his own volition. _Just leave me alone._

When Keith rises to leave, it’s the creak of a chair, rickety and hesitant. It’s the stuttering start of a train, building with steam and pressure and speed until he’s out of the room with barely another glance. The threshold closes behind him, the sliding door hissing shut with an air of finality.

Emptiness closed in on Lance as he collapsed sideways onto his now empty bed. The spot that Keith had left was warm, and the space he had occupied still lingered with his scent.

Tears continued to pour out of Lance, body curled tight until it could no longer offer up anything else. Until his muscles atrophied with stillness, fatigued from being clenched up for so long. Until his cheeks tightened with wetness and his eyes only burned faintly as the lids closed atop them. His eyelashes brush over his cheeks, sharp and uncomfortable, like the prick of a pin.

 _L-A-N-C-E,_ he spells out in his head. A trick his mother had taught him whenever he would get these episodes as a child. _Spell it out for me, baby_ , she would coo at him, holding him by his shoulders, crouched down with gentle lips and deep brown eyes. 

_L-A-N-C-E._

Lance lays still until the pain goes away. Until his name becomes a meaningless string of letters that build into the same word no matter what order you put them in. Until the hole in his heart has closed up to the width of a thread. It hung with strands of anxiety, threatening to unravel at any moment.

For now, until the next day beckoned him with regrets and Keith with unmet gazes, he would stay alone. He would stay alone, and spell it out for himself.

**Author's Note:**

> i wish i could think of a happy end but tbh this was just cathartic for me. something about lance wrecked and ruined helps me work through shit.


End file.
